This sw opens with outlaw Dan Murphy(Craig Hill),wife and baby arriving in town by wagon,but theres a reception commitee of lawmen waiting for him,and when they pounce unfortnately the child ends up taking a bullet from Sheriff Rogers.But suddenly Murphy wakes ups,its a nightmare retelling an event which happened 4 years ago.Murphy(under assumed name Richard Markey) is now totally reformed having ditched his guns,and with his wife and child Andy have settled into a new community in another state.But things ain't that easy because the Castle brothers are causing havoc all over the territory,and Murphy is enduring being taunted and beaten up but decides to turn the other cheek.

However things are set to change very rapidly because we learn that Andy is actually Sheriff Rogers son, whom the Murphys had kidnapped in retaliation for the loss of their son,and had brought him up as their own.Out of the blue a represantative of Rogers comes looking for Andy,and reluctantly to avoid any further loss of life they allow Andy to be taken away to his true father.Meanwhile there has been mass murder of Murphy's friends at the hands of the Castles and with Andy (but is this the last we hear of his adopted son? )gone it seems theres nothing holding back Murphy from picking up his guns.

Although quite bleak,i found this western gripping and very enjoyable especially with there being two stories running parellel.Craig Hill is excellent(as are the other performances) at conveying the pain of losing not one but two sons,and at dealing out his own justice on his enemies,including a neat little duel involving russian roulette.

Banjo calls this a SW. I think he's only partially entitled to it. I think this is the best AW made by europeans I saw so far. And I think it easily ranks with the best made in USA in the 50's. Actually, it is much better than many because it deals with the mainstays of the genre (family, children, man and wife talk, marriyng party and dances) in a quite functional way which never lets the action slow down. The film starts at 100 and keeps going unhindered by the just "reflective" scenes until the very end, with a finale which, (absit iniuria verbis!), reminded me of GBU!. Unfortunately the Lavagnino's score is not, as to be expected, particularly brilliant but just run of the mill. This is why (together with some minor defect in some action scene and the plot twist preventing Hill to be shot at and killed toward the end) I can give it only a 8\10.